EURO 2024 Copenhagen
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3310. Geometrical optics inspires fast boarding with slow passengers

Invited abstract in session TB-54: Airplane Boarding, stream Public Transport Optimization.

Tuesday, 10:30-12:00
Room: S01 (building: 101)

Authors (first author is the speaker)

1. Sveinung Erland
Department of Maritime Studies, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences

Abstract

Airlines try to reduce the boarding time by letting certain groups of passengers enter the queue at the gate in a specific order. Slow passengers use long time to clear the aisle and block other passengers from reaching their seats. We show that a significant proportion of slow passengers can be permitted without increasing the boarding time, by using a simple Slow-in-the-Back-First (SBF) boarding policy that consists of only two groups. The policy is superior to several other group policies that are based on expected differences in aisle-clearing times, e.g., due to hand luggage.

The practical SBF policy allows for only slightly fewer slow passengers than a corresponding optimal “lens” policy, which on the other hand is hard to implement. The lens policy is based on the same principle as an optical lens and is optimal in the sense that no fast passenger can be replaced by a slow passenger without increasing the boarding time. A geometric representation of the queue position and row designation of each passenger and a Lorentzian metric enable computation of the asymptotic boarding time when the number of passengers is large. The analytical asymptotic results are corroborated by simulations with a realistic number of passengers.

We also show how the SBF-policy can be adjusted to include a specified proportion of slow passengers that exceeds the critical upper limit, with limited increase in total boarding time.

Keywords

Status: accepted

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